Engineers, Not M.B.A.s, Should Run Businesses

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12:49 pm July 13, 2011

Nuno wrote:

What about Engineers with MBA?!

1:03 pm July 13, 2011

Anonymous wrote:

Engineers think engineers should run everything. Gee, there's a shock.

1:26 pm July 13, 2011

Walt wrote:

From an ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT (to the CEO) perspective.... Engineers have great technical skills BUT they lack important "commmunication" skills when dealing with employees. Our company has been run by many people with various backgrounds, engineers being the least successful.... sorry guys, there are some things you simply can not do very well. There is much more to running a company than equipment, specs, budgets and logic. A company goes down fast if you don't see to the needs of your various employees.

3:23 pm July 13, 2011

Kangl wrote:

Engineers who have business skills, should certainly be the right candidates. Gone are the days when engineers have to remain "techies forever!" Give them a chance, they will prove it

3:36 pm July 13, 2011

Norbert wrote:

unbelievable statement from Walt: Engineers have great technical skills BUT they lack important “commmunication” skills when dealing with employees.

I can judge because I'm engineer for 26 years and I'm manager for many years, too. And when leaving my last company my staff announced me to be the best manager they ever had. So in my opinion these kinds of phrases are just for the bin. May be a company with such expereince did not choose the right engineers - sorry to say.

3:50 pm July 13, 2011

Acebravo wrote:

I disagree, I'm an engineer but let's face it, we know nothing about financials, biz development or client/employee motivation...some of us who do are exception only.

6:42 pm July 13, 2011

TelJim wrote:

Fact is running a successful business requires know-how. Whether you're born with keen business instincts, have technical ingenuity or you've tackled and mastered the elements of a rigorous MBA program. Where the rubber meets the road is vision, planning and management. They are all required for successful business.

5:35 am July 14, 2011

Gene wrote:

"A company goes down fast if you don’t see to the needs of your various employees." The company will thrive, as long as you see to the needs of engineers, the problem solvers and innovators.

We do need engineers to run businesses to be able to compete long term. Engineers run business in Germany, China... Unfortunately, our financial system tolerates huge trade imbalances, which directly supports job outsourcing business model. Our MBA CEOs naturally excel in improving productivity by job outsourcing to cheap labor. The present financial system compliments their business strengths very well.

6:38 am July 14, 2011

dimitris wrote:

What about an engineer with an MBA

8:36 am July 14, 2011

Niall wrote:

Both Nuno and Dimitris have pointed out the obvious, an Engineer with an MBA. But there's a bit more to that, putting a chemicial Eng with an MBA in charge of a software firm would have limited benefit.

The crucial piece is that the "Engineer" part of the Exec would know the capabilities and limitiations of the practical side of the business. Then when you layer on this experience is the MBA side which has demonstrated but the desire and capability to learn and achieve more, you've got an Executive that can understand the business at gut level but also graps the real-world gorund rules like Financial management, marketing, strategic competition, etc.

So now that we have the succession planning for the corporate world sort, I'd just like to rain on the general parade by pointing out that I don't think it'd be necessarily good to get engineers to run marketing companies and other such companies. It all boils down to ensuring the people running the bsuiness actaully understand the basis if the industry they're directing their shareholders valuable resources.

At one time AT&T was frequently proud to point out that its CEO started out climbing telephone poles at age 18 and worked his way up in the company to CEO. I suspect the present CEO who pays himself $72 Million a year (says the Newark Star Ledger in their highest paid CEO article) climbed the ladder by polishing the handle on the big brass door and graduated from some bean counter college.

3:03 pm July 18, 2011

José Carmo Silva wrote:

Probably we need to go to the origin of MBA courses.
These post graduation courses was created in order to give to the engineers ( that the genesis of his career course is typically more entrepreneurial ) the right skills in terms of the new leadership, financial, economics and marketing fileds required for the modern companies.
Its is true that some years after the MBA courses becomes a new status and not a skill repository.
So, we are talking about the some thing, if we consider the MBA substrate.

3:19 pm July 18, 2011

Peter wrote:

I believe, "success" strongly correlates with the" matching coefficient" of strengths/personality with role/job requirements. I am convinced, certain "types" can be good in different roles.
Personally i had the role of "technical expert" and am now in role "(Program+Line) Manager". I was good at a CERTAIN type of technical tasks and i am good at a CERTAIN type of management tasks. Both requiring same skills/strenghts/personality. I would assume, the majority of "succesfull" CEOs in IT share similar personality traits.

3:51 pm July 18, 2011

Mark Crompton wrote:

Do we really want to listen to anyone from the management at GM on best practices?

6:24 pm July 18, 2011

Tech guy wrote:

Or you may get lots of products with no demand for them. You need a comfortable mix of engineers and business/ marketing people. This article assumes the engineers also understand many of the critical components of the P&L, sales, marketing side of the business.

9:05 pm July 18, 2011

graham charles wrote:

In my experience, managers with MBA’s are focused on getting themselves a senior management position and moving up the corporate ladder. Nothing wrong in that from their point of view, but from a shareholder or employee or customer’s point of view, this focus on personal advancement is not always in line with the growth and long term prosperity of the company that employs them.

I fully agree with what Bob stated. In his business if you don’t have an engineering background you shouldn’t be running an engineering based company that produces mechanical based consumer products.

Also the comment about the AT&T CEO starting at the bottom of the company and working his way up, never seems to happen today. In modern times CEO’s are parachuted into the board room of a company, stay for less than ten years and then leave or frequently are sacked within just a few years and go with a huge golden handshake which they simply do not deserve.

Whether it be a car manufacturer or a telecoms company or any other business the best people to run it are the people who deeply understand that business and have worked in it from the ground up, not “general purpose” managers who excel at board room politics and are very good at negotiating their remuneration package so that they get paid millions regardless of what results they achieve.

Half true..People starting or has background as engineer and equipped himself with business knowledge or taking MBA is most suitable. Taking Apple sample is too generalize. Only engineer people without business skill or knowledge will not understand about the need of customer focus, about how to measure corporate performance through financial statement, about the importance of competitive advantage, about how to analyze macro or micro environment for developing business strategy.etc. In conclusion, The best man is the man who has engineer background but enrich his skill/knowledge by learning business or taking MBA.

11:30 pm July 18, 2011

Nova novriansyah, Msc, MBA wrote:

Half true..People starting or has background as engineer and equipped himself with business knowledge or taking MBA is most suitable. Taking Apple sample is too generalize. Only engineer people without business skill or knowledge will not understand about the need of customer focus, about how to measure corporate performance through financial statement, about the importance of competitive advantage, about how to analyze macro or micro environment for developing business strategy.etc. In conclusion, The best man is the man who has engineer background but enrich his skill/knowledge by learning business or taking MBA.

11:38 pm July 18, 2011

Ikki wrote:

I agree with Nova, this is half True. I graduated with a B.S in Electrical Engineering. I than attended the Gordon Institute of Tufts University, which was an Engineering Management program, dedicated to the intermarriage of "Technical" know how with Business sense.

I know lots of Engineers that are great inventors, but that couldn't market or sell their product to run their lives. I know lots of Engineers that run their business, but don't understand the first concept of Marketing or advertising or how to read a P&L statement.

In this day and age, having a strong combination of both technical and business background are key to running a successful technology company.

12:21 am July 19, 2011

JNS wrote:

Totally true, it amazes me how people have such short memories. A little history Bell, Ford. Eastman, Edison,Wright brothers the list goes on were one person was at the heart of the invention . We, 100 years later have traded on these developments which without doubt has made a lot of money. The inverter did not. It did not take experts of management to have any involvement they just exploited the situation in other words they came later. A good example of today is the wireless industry for mobile expansion market. Huge potential. Trouble is the so called experts of management do not have a clue how to get there. Engineers do. I am talking about development to solve a major problem the other lot come later.

I'm engineer, currently doing sales.. it doesn't take an MBA to understand market dynamics and customer needs and being customer focus.

3:34 am July 19, 2011

sandesh wrote:

Crap!!!!

4:29 am July 19, 2011

Alexander wrote:

It doesn't matter who you are: engineer or MBA or without any education at all. This is entrepreneurial skill, something different from engineering or MBA. Management of a business
must be the thing that turns you on, not financial graphs or a smart algorithm.

5:32 am July 19, 2011

Dan Bergman wrote:

To run a company best, I think it just takes an intelligent person who knows the ins and outs of the company's work. Someone with nothing more than an M.B.A. should be an accountant, nothing more. If the person doesn't know how to do everyone's job in the company, he doesn't have a clue about what might be needed to make it work because he doesn't know the right questions to ask his employees.

6:44 am July 19, 2011

Aide Memoire wrote:

This is the same Bob Lutz MBA who helped GM become a manufacturing cripple, only able to keep up a high volume of sales by aggressive discounting prices, propped up by its financial business and with such high fixed costs that the firm couldn't survive when sales fell - except with a government bailout. Oh yes, and the same Bob Lutz who complained about government interference because of the demands they placed on cars... but never seemed to mind huge amounts of taxpayer's money being diverted to save his companies. The same Bob Lutz who thinks the failure of the US car industry - so obviously in trouble for more than a decade - can be blamed on everybody but people like him who were paid huge amounts to run big companies. He even blames customers for liking Japanese cars... stupid customers! How dare they! And now he's pushing a book which explains why he's right, everyone else is wrong, and the only reason anything turned out bad is because people don't listen to him enough. It's true that Bob Lutz gives us an insight into why corporate America is in such a bad state. It's because morons like Bob Lutz get treated with respect instead of being lampooned for the arrogant and moronic drivel they spout. "Shoemakers should be run by shoe guys." That sounds like cobblers to me.

6:51 am July 19, 2011

Nick the greek wrote:

I think there is no actual question here, and thus no one true answer. I would have to agree with Alexander that it is a matter of entrepreneurial skill rather than education one way or the other (and I am an Engineer). It is a matter of drive and need for new things and effectiveness. It is more of a personality trait rather than educational background. I have a friend than graduated Theology and is now running the VoIP Department/Service of a Telco... So are Engineers better than MBAs? I say show me the person not his/her degree!

8:55 am July 19, 2011

peeps wrote:

haha I've read this type of comment so many times! ...Mostly written by engineers of course....... I do agree however that in the specific case of the technology industry, where people are dealing with complex products, having a good understanding of what you're bringing to market means you need to be a little more informed than the average guy. Having said that the reason why apple is successful is because Steve Jobs is a product guy who understands the business, which is rare -... just as rare in fact as a business guy that understands the product.....; the point being that in reality you need a people that have both the product AND the business skills no matter which came first

9:23 am July 19, 2011

Benjamin wrote:

This is funny! Too much of statistical forecasts and analysis to determine candidates. As per the article i think the college drop outs should become CEOs not MBAs or Engineers! Doesnt it imply so???? As far a job suitability is concerned for a leadership position or one who drives any business "Should be an Entrepreneural" character, not a qualified and branded business professionals with backgrounds. That Entrepreneural Character can be from any background even a medical professional. What matters is the passion and loyalty to deliver what the stakeholders of any business needs to be a Business Leader or a Driving force. Engineers and MBA's wake up!!!!!!!!!! No more bookworms with worthless philosophies please.......

1:04 pm July 19, 2011

Butt wrote:

i think GOD giffted skills or inborne abilities as enterprenuare will more effective when we polished it with specific trainings like MBA

3:15 pm July 19, 2011

Michelangelo wrote:

I am not an Engineer or have an MBA, but I did teach myself the technical knowledge needed to run the two businesses I started and still run successfully. What you need to be successful in a high tech business are people who know what they are selling, to the point they can convince customers that they have the better offering or customer services. The best way is to find a technical person (usually from Engineering) with strong business savvy and give them a leadership position. It's tough to find an "MBA" willing to learn any technology. They are usually too comfortable yelling at meetings or writing emails. Still, MBAs without knowledge of the product or solution are as effective as engineers who cannot balance their own checkbooks.

9:43 pm July 19, 2011

Star Catcher wrote:

I don't care which runs a company. A moot point really. It is like asking which partner in a marriage contributes most to its success? In a business sense, both players bring something to the business however it is a question of synergies being discovered and individual strengths being leverage ahead of in house politics and corporate silos run as fiefdoms..

2:04 am July 20, 2011

Don Kraycik wrote:

Finally, some common sense.

4:35 am July 20, 2011

Madhu wrote:

Hi
An engineer can understand the fuctionality of the product where as a buz man with professional degree like MBA can able to understand the market ... he identifyies the need and do the GAP Analysis and can ablt to take his compnay from one stage to another unlike an engineer. Engineer will succeed only in innovation but a MBA can fill the old wine in new bottle and can able to sell in market.
Can an engineer analyse the Buz cycles? or market Macro and Micro driving factors? Not at all.....

This is hust my openion

6:33 am July 20, 2011

Francois wrote:

I am an engineer with a MBA. In my opinion it is accountants running companies that are the problem and not MBA's. A MBA gives you the confidance and a good understanding of the market and Buz cycles within your market environment. As an engineer I focus on delivering the core products and services of the company. As a business man I rely on my MBA to guide me around the Buz cycles. The problem relates more to companies that employ young MBA's ("kids with MBA's") and expecting them to be able to make decisions which at the end of the day relates to buz exposure and experience.

12:20 pm July 30, 2011

Ahmed Kamran wrote:

I personally think that Innovative Change Management is one of the critical tool for an innovative company. Apple under steve jobs started with an idealization of company's competitive strategy and its desire for innovation supported by its engineers- very true and i agree. However, Apple is successful today NOT by its Innovative products developed by its engineers alone BUT it is capturing business due to its ability to focus regularly by proactively scanning end-user and consumer needs while identifying problems and opportunities before they are a threat.So, if the organization truely understands Innovative change management they prosper and which stands as an important aspect of MBA.

8:40 am August 1, 2011

Anonymous wrote:

MBA's without a technical background may lack the understanding to run the show. I thought MBA's were originally invented to teach Engineers how to run business? Now I see undergrads from Business getting MBA's... it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

1:25 pm August 1, 2011

Engineer with an MBA wrote:

Wait a minute - what ever happened to team work? A company needs both business savvy and technical know how to develop, launch and market successful products. ...and it also needs good customer service, continuous innovation, smart people, the right incentive plans, etc. etc. Successful business is not about either the engineers or the MBA's 'running' the show. It is about taking the skills that different people bring to the table and putting it all together.

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